The Penthouse: War in Life (2020)

Proceed with caution, if that makes sense.

'The Penthouse' is an SBS drama series which has been planned to have a total of 3 seasons. The show focuses on the lives of high society people who live in a luxurious apartment named the 'Hera Palace'. They'd do anything to protect their social status-- even if it means that they have to kill someone.

3 seasons feel like a big stretch while the 1st season itself has 21 episodes. So, should you buckle up and watch 3 whole seasons of this show? Is it all worth it?

Firstly, let's talk about the plot. The first season of The Penthouse focuses on a murder mystery, a revenge plot and introduces its variety of characters to the viewers. A good revenge plot and a murder mystery is fun to watch, but does this show fall into the 'well-done' category? If you think logic and basic sense of knowledge, this show's plot lacks at that. Many conflicts made in the show would be quickly solved only if the writer had applied more common sense and logic to the story. However, the frequent plot twists and unpredictable situations definitely makes up for it. On the other hand, let's talk about the characters. Where do I even get started? The Penthouse sounds similar to the hit 2018 drama Sky Castle in many aspects. However, the characters of The Penthouse draw a big line. One moment you'd think one character in The Penthouse couldn't get worse, and then BOOM, the character turns out to be a whole lot more worse and just insane at one point. Most of The Penthouse characters don't have much sense of morality and they have very little humanity in them. One thing you need to acknowledge, is that no character in this show truly have a development or redemption. Is that a bad thing, you may think? Well, it depends on what kind of a viewer you are. Now you might also be thinking that how will you be able to watch something with 21 episodes where 9 out of 10 characters on an average are despicable? The evil characters and their insane actions make this show unpredictable, crazy and extremely addicting. You'll undoubtedly be hooked to it despite of the hatred it'll make you feel. This drama, in short, is an intense and over-exaggerated 'makjang' (soap opera), that is one of the most dramatic shows you'll get to watch. I believe anyone will finds themselves totally engrossed into the show-- as long as you don't take it too seriously.

Finally, about the acting. Many people will have issues with the acting and I have to admit, it is quite over-the-top at times. There's a whole lot of screaming, crying, throwing tantrums (or basically breaking stuff), shooting lazers from the eyes and a lot of... opera? I personally believe the acting style was pretty good and suited the plot well, and if I had to do a special mention, it'd be Kim So Yeon, who plays the role of Cheon Seo Jin. Her character is crazy, ruthless and one of the worst. And while Kim So Yeon's acting is also over-exaggerated, her overall performance was brilliant. The rest of the cast was great too, indeed.

For the music, I'd say it wasn't anything outstanding but it did the work pretty well. The scores they had suited the scenes perfectly and helped to set the dramatic mood much further. It would've done better for the show commercially if they had a memorable OST like the ones in 'Sky Castle' and 'The World of The Married'.

Overall, my rating for the first season of 'The Penthouse' is a good ol' 8 out of 10. 8 is a quite high score for me, so do I recommend this show? I do recommend. But, I personally believe it depends on what sort of viewer you are, as I mentioned earlier. You will either love and embrace the insanity of this show or you will not be able to tolerate it more than the first 3 episodes. But in the end, the question remains, is it worth for 3 seasons? That also depends on you but I personally doubt I'll be continuing. But then again, I might change my mind in the future when I'm in need of 100x stress and high blood pressure for no reason because I like pain :'). Thanks a lot for reading this excessively large and spoiler-free review, if anyone did read it and find it helpful!

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Penthouse was a really peculiar experience for me, something that I haven't encountered in my journey through dramaland yet. A full blown makjang extraordinaire, the closest thing to grotesque, truly faithful to its baroque provenance - extreme, excessive, contradictory and uncomfortable to watch. So, fortunately, it completely fits my preferences, but generally speaking it's not the easiest thing to swallow.

The writers of this drama don't want to spare their audience, they don't play easy. This is a show full of twists and turns, exaggerated acting, hilariously absurd scenes and plot resolutions, irony and overall over-the-topness. Classical music playing in the distance while the red wine is tossed around the table and the characters slap each other. You're gonna either retreat in disgust seeing that combination or you'll end up loving every second of this on-screen madness spectacle.

On the surface it's all about the glam and gore, but it's not completely shallow as it might seem. It's a well known story about the destructive nature of greed and a satire on classism and the invincible regime of The Rich™. We have the class of bad bourgeoisie, corrupted and rotten to the core, with Joo Dan Tae in the lead. He's more of an idea, the personification of Evil that rules in this big Moloch-like castle that is Hera Palace. The building itself is very symbolic too, it rules over the city as the highest and the most luxurious/desireable residential building in the city, but its nothing more than a devilish machine that devours its residents and transform them into greedy and inhumane versions of themselves . They're all a part of the system of injustice that either destroy the poor and weak (Min Seol A) or corrupt their mind too (Oh Yoon Hee). Every character in this show is more or less despicable and we truly love to hate on them all. From the evil mastermind Dan Tae, witchy Seo Jin and her Lady Macbeth-esque descent into madness to naive and easily manipulated Yoon Hee. Even the audience's sweetheart Su Ryeon is not completely flawless. And the sad conclusion that's left at the end of the show is that in the end there is no escape from the creepling evilness. You can try, you can fight and the skies will eventually side with the rich. But for how long? Well, we will see in the next seasons!

What I truly loved about this show were the little bits of absolutely random comedic scenes. They were surreal and hilarious (with the lucha libre kidnapping being my absolute favorite), but somehow fit the mood of the entire show. And I felt like it was a reminder that this show is not 100% serious and should be treated that way. We love a self-aware makjang!

The only thing that bothered me was the entire subplot of kids. Well, it wasn't a subplot per se, as the kids played a major role in the whole plot (as a catalyst of Min Seol A tragedy, their parents weakness and kind of a deterministic effect of their parent's flawed parenting), but I felt like it stood out from the main plot that took place in the "adult world". Especially interactions between the kids themselves, it felt like a separate story. And the writing in this part was really weak. Some characters didn't make sense (Ro Na especially), so it was hard to watch.

Writing was kinda bumpy for me in general. The beginning was fantastic, really well connected events, logical (even for this drama!) consequences and reactions from the characters. But the ending felt really flat with too much information given in the last minute and too convenient plot resolutions. Also (please, don't kill me for that hot take!) I feel like some actors went a little overboard with their exaggerated acting. Yes, it fits this type of show, but I felt like they relied too much on screams, evil smirks and wide opened eyes. Even when the seamless transitions between these expressions were truly outstanding (Kim So Yeon), it really loose its impact when it's repeated few times .

Overaly it's such a fun show. If you're willing to abandon logic and embrace the madness of this drama, it's gonna be a time well spent. But beware, it's really addictive!

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